


quintessence

by MyGirlfriendsAttic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Not Epilogue Compliant, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyGirlfriendsAttic/pseuds/MyGirlfriendsAttic
Summary: When Harry returns to Hogwarts for his eighth year, he’s yet to find the peace he was promised after the War. Instead, he’s doing all he can to keep the nightmares and the ghosts of loss at bay. And he’s managing it, too—that is, until Malfoy starts showing up in Harry’s nightmares and refuses to leave.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	quintessence

**Author's Note:**

> hiii! this is a completely self-indulgent fic. enter at your own risk.

The tomatoes are coming in nicely. Harry is bent over their blooming green buds, brushing dirt off his jeans and t-shirt, when Hermione finds him. He knows immediately that it’s her, brown toes peeking over pale sandal straps; ever since her month in Australia, working to regain her parents’ memories, she’s come back tanned and sandal-clad. He supposes she’s earned the right to relax a bit.

“Our letters have come,” she says. “Errol just brought them. He’s recuperating now, so don’t expect to send any letters out for at least a week.”

Hermione is watching him carefully. Her deep brown eyes squint in the setting sun, and Harry’s are sore from the glare, but even with that he can see the caution in the way she watches him. The way she’s handling him with care, sensing fragility, even though it was her who’d been tortured and her who had _mudblood_ engraved on her arms and her whose parents’ minds had erased their daughter for possibly forever.

“Anything interesting?” Harry asks. He stands up from his crouch, body groaning, and steps toward the Burrow.

The crease between Hermione’s brows relaxes. “Oh, you won’t believe who they’ve hired as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor this year. He’s incredibly distinguished—he wrote the book I was telling you about the other day…”

Harry’s mind starts to fuzz over as Hermione catches that thread and begins to rave about whatever book it is. Apparently, she’s read the author’s work before, agrees with his theoretical framework—with some reservations, of course, but isn’t that what good academic discourse is about?—and he loses her somewhere in the jargon. But there’s a warm, calming tide to the waves of her speech; her voice, intonations, crisp and tumbling sentences are familiar and comforting. The Weaselys’ garden, overflowing with vegetables and wildflowers and grubby gnomes, is comforting. The sloped outline of the Burrow ahead of them is comforting. The faint shout of Ron and Ginny arguing and Mrs. Weasley chiding spills out onto the lawn, and that, too, is comforting.

There’s a stasis here that Harry has sat in all summer. The same routine—repairing the Burrow, tending to the garden, peeling potatoes under Mrs. Weasley’s watchful eye. Quidditch with Ron and Ginny. Sitting by the fire with Hermione and Ron into early morning hours. Sometimes, in the rhythm and loudness and sweat of it all, Harry can almost stop thinking and convince himself that everything is normal.

Almost.

And now the letters from Hogwarts, the eighth and final ones, have arrived. The return to Hogwarts looms only a week away, carefully tucked into a distant corner in Harry’s mind.

When Hermione and Harry squeeze through the front door of the Burrow, Ron and Ginny are still arguing.

Ron looks indignant. “Why should I get the hand-me-down and you get the new one? How does that make any sense? I’ve been getting hand-me-downs for _years_ , it’s time you took your turn—”

“I’m not the one who _lost_ my cauldron—”

“Lost? _Lost_? Don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but I was on the bloody run from a maniac, Gin, keeping track of my cauldron wasn’t the first thing on my mind—”

“Ronald, honestly,” Hermione interjects. “She’ll need it longer than you, anyway. And I have a spare you can have; I bought a new one, full pewter, but the other still works well. They’re supposed to add a layer of precision, pewter ones.”

Ron goes a little pink in the face, the way he does whenever someone offers him something. Harry can see his face twist a bit as he weighs his pride against angering Hermione. His mouth snaps shut.

“See, _Ronald_?” Ginny says. She looks amused. “You can stop whinging now.”

“I wasn’t _whinging_ ,” Ron snaps. Ginny just rolls her eyes and brushes past Harry on her way out of the Burrow. They make eye contact as she does, and Harry can feel his grin die a bit.

Tucked firmly in another distant corner of Harry’s mind: he and Ginny haven’t kissed again, haven’t even spoken about their kiss. The first few weeks after the Battle, he waited nervously for her to make a move, and he’s fairly sure she expected him to make one, too. But the War had only just ended, and the Burrow was still in shambles, and Fred had _just_ died, and Harry had only just—

It just never happened. That stasis had lulled Harry in, and the longer he took refuge in it, the less he wanted to disturb it. The less he wanted to kiss Ginny. The less he wanted to consider what being with her would be like.

“Don’t see why we have to take Potions at all this year, anyway,” Ron mutters.

“Oh, honestly, Ron! Haven’t we moved past this?”

Harry pushes thoughts of Ginny and Hogwarts and the future aside. Instead, he drifts to the kitchen table, takes a seat in one wobbly, well-worn chair, and lets the tide of Ron and Hermione’s back and forth take over him again.

\-----

The nightmares have come every night since a week after the Battle.

At first, Harry’s exhaustion was so deep in his bones, he didn’t have room for anything else. Days of repairing the castle, piecing together the Burrow, and helping track down Death Eaters left little to no room for thoughts, let alone dreams. The moment his head touched his pillow, a blank sleep would settle over him, and he would wake feeling like he’d been hit repeatedly by the Hogwarts train and then stomped on by a herd of hippogriffs. But he still slept uninterrupted.

And then the first nightmare came. And then the next. And then the next, and the next, over and over again, like a highlight reel of all of Harry’s worst moments and fears.

Sometimes Sirius was alive again and Harry was chasing him through the ministry, hearing his footsteps but never seeing him, knowing with certainty that he would die again, always just seconds behind. Other times, he was frozen as Dumbledore pitched off the sharp edge of the Astronomy tower, just outside of Harry’s reach. Or he was watching his mother, his father, Lupin, Tonks, Fred dying repeatedly and in increasingly horrifying ways. Sometimes, even Ron or Hermione or Luna or Neville bled out in his dreams as Harry watched helplessly, tried to run to them through sleep-viscous air that left him feeling breathless and immobilized.

Other nights, he was entering the Forbidden Forrest again, except this time he was alone. Utterly alone in the ink blackness of the night. Voldemort’s high, cold laugh would pierce the air, but the flash of green light never came; instead, Voldemort’s icy fingers would lock onto Harry’s throat and dig into flesh, and Harry would die with no one close to him but Voldemort.

Harry wakes in the gray of dawn each morning, twisted in sweaty bedsheets. Sometimes he wakes in darkness, more night than morning, whimpering. There is always a tight ball in his chest, as if someone has tied his lungs in a knot and pulled. It never loosens until his eyes find Ron’s snoring form in the darkness, and he reassures himself that the breath is moving steadily in and out of Ron’s lungs.

Harry tried sleeping in Grimmauld Place just once. He figured that it was his, the first and only house he had ever owned—and more importantly, it was once Sirius’, no matter how much Sirius had hated it. He ought to at least try living there.

But he’d woken from a nightmare so bad that he had stumbled blindly from the bed, shaking and drenched. He had trembled his way through room after room, feeling as though he were somewhere outside of his body; he didn’t have the steadiness of Ron’s breath to tether him anymore. The tightness in his chest had pressed and pressed and pressed until he had fallen to the floor before the fireplace and felt with absolute certainty that was dying. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, heart racing as if to escape from his chest, and he really was going to die alone, wasn’t he? And how funny was that? The first time in his entire life that he didn’t have a mass murderer out to get him, and he was going to die alone on his living room floor anyway.

And it was that thought, that aching _aloneness_ , more than anything, that had him firecalling the Weasleys’ house that night. To his surprise, it wasn’t Mrs. Weasley who answered after a few moments, but Hermione, hair frizzing and flying with the muss of sleep. She had taken one look at Harry’s shaking form and immediately flooed over to retrieve him.

“I think you ought to come back for tonight, Harry,” she had said so gently, cupping one of his arms in both of her warm, dark hands.

That was the last time Harry tried sleeping there.

A week after the Hogwarts letters arrive, he starts awake again, gut dropping from the sensation of once more witnessing Dumbledore’s plunge from the Astronomy Tower. Harry wrestles with the knot in his heaving chest before homing in on Ron’s snores from across the room. He tries to even his breaths to match Ron’s, and after a moment, the knot in his chest loosens enough to relax.

Through the curtained window, gray light trickles in. The sun has clearly risen, and Harry decides that sleep will not come again this morning. There’s no use staying in bed.

Downstairs, Hermione, Ginny, and Mr. Weasley sit at the kitchen table. Mr. Weasley has a muggle newspaper spread in front of him, his nose barely an inch from the ink. Mrs. Weasley fusses over a kettle that, rather than scream, has taken to pestering her in the wobbly voice of an elderly woman.

“I’m done, dear! Can’t you see I’m done?”

“Oh, hush,” Mrs. Weasley mutters.

“I heard that. Quickly! I’m done!”

“Morning, Harry!” Mr. Weasley says upon seeing him. “Just got a copy of _The Metro_. Fascinating read, this is. Did you know muggles have to _pay_ to fix their roads?”

“Uh, I reckon,” Harry says, sliding into the seat beside Hermione, who is meticulously reviewing her packing list. By unspoken agreement, Fred’s old seat remains empty; George, gone soon after the battle to his flat in Diagon Alley, is also absent. “You lot are up early.”

“Lots to do before we leave today, dear,” Mrs. Weasley says as she floats tea onto the table. “You can all sleep on the train ride there. Was Ron on his way down?”

“He’s asleep still.”

“Figures,” she mutters. “That boy could sleep through a 20-man broom accident.”

“I’ll fetch him, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione says. She rises from the table and gives Harry’s shoulder a brief squeeze on her way out.

Mrs. Weasley nudges a cup of tea toward Harry. “You look tired, dear. Drink up.”

“Thanks.”

By the time Hermione returns down the stairs with a yawning Ron in tow, Mrs. Weasley has got the luggage and floo powder ready in the living room, and Harry has worked his way through a cup of tea and a slice of toast.

“About time,” Ginny says to Ron as he stumbles past.

“Shuddup.”

“You’d better eat quickly, Ron, or you’ll miss the train,” Mrs. Weasley chides. Ron grumbles something under his breath as he piles his plate high with sausage and eggs and takes a seat on Hermione’s other side.

When they do make it to Platform 9 ¾, they’re early, even after Ron’s generous second helping of breakfast and Ginny’s forgotten cauldron (“and you accuse me of losing _my_ cauldron.”). Even Mrs. Weasley seems a bit lost to be early for once. It’s a sudden reminder that what once was a horde of late, forgetful children is now whittled down to just the four of them. No one seems to know quite what to do.

Harry wishes they hadn’t been so early. More and more people continue to throng in—hordes of eager first-years gawping at him from around their parents, clumps of upper-years growing hushed and awed as he walks by, and—to his great distress—several flashes of cameras burning his retinas. The growing crowd silences and parts for his group as they walk, and urgent whispers commence the second he passes. It almost reminds him of his second year, when everyone thought he was the heir of Slytherin, except this time it is pure and unadulterated worship, not suspicion, and this time is a thousand times worse. The knot in his chest tightens painfully in the press of the crowd, and he trains his eyes on the graying fire of Mrs. Weasley’s hair.

They stand and chat idly for a while, all valiantly trying to ignore the stream of young girls who approach Harry for an autograph. He finds himself signing paper after paper and even once a large poster of himself, although he looks just as bewildered and lost in the photograph as he’s sure he does amongst the crowd now. Ron catches one glimpse of the poster and has to turn his laugh into a choking, unconvincing cough. Harry glares at him.

The good-byes are short when they come, although Mrs. Weasley is still tearful; no one is fond of saying good-bye anymore. They dance around the word, replacing it with _behave_ and _see you at Christmas_ and _don’t forget to owl_!

As the four of them finally turn to board the train, making their way painfully slow through the crush of awe-struck students, a sudden flash burns once again into Harry’s eyes.

“What the—”

“Harry, so good to see you again! It’s been too long, hasn’t it, dear? Tell me, are you looking forward to your final year? Leaving any secret summer trysts behind?” It takes a moment for Harry to recover from his blinded shock and place the oily, simpering voice of Rita Skeeter. She has somehow forced her way through the packed crowd to stand beside him, her camera floating next to her. Her long nails are painted a bloody red.

“Well?” she presses. “Any broken hearts you’ve abandoned in the name of education, Harry? Don’t be shy.”

“He won’t be answering any of your questions,” Hermione sniffs from Harry’s side, grabbing a tight hold of his arm and yanking him forward with the inextricable force of her determination. He hears the click of Skeeter’s camera going off behind his back. Somehow, Hermione pulls them all the way through the crowd of adoring students, sufficiently cowed by Hermione’s angry eyes, and into a compartment toward the middle of the train. She slams the door shut behind them and spells it locked with an angry click, before casting a silencing charm.

“Blimey,” Ron mutters. “Can’t we turn her into a bug again?”

“Afraid not,” Hermione answers, although her shoulders loosen and lips quirk up. “I’m a bit more ethical than I once was.”

“You’ll have to create loads more bugs if you want Harry to be left alone,” Ginny muses as she settles into her seat. “All those prepubescent girls could use a day in the life of an insect.”

“Merlin help us if Skeeter starts writing articles again. You think it’s a bloody mess now? Wait until those girls find out Harry’s single—” Ron cuts himself off abruptly as he catches Hermione’s sharp glance. A silence as thick as bubotuber pus settles over them.

They muddle through a few more moments of stilted conversation before Ginny excuses herself to go find Neville. She leaves quickly.

“Really, Ron?” Hermione sighs the second the door slides shut.

“What? It’s not my fault that Harry doesn’t want—” he silences himself at another glare from Hermione, then says to Harry: “Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to say it was your fault, either.”

“No problem.”

“It’s no one’s fault, honestly.” She turns to Harry, brown eyes beseeching. “Really, Harry, these things happen in relationships. It’s all right if—if it’s not working out. Maybe…well, I was thinking…maybe some time for yourself isn’t such a bad thing?”

“Thanks, Hermione. I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry mutters, hoping this will sate her. He doesn’t want to discuss his love life—or lack of—in front of his not-girlfriend’s brother. He doesn’t want to have to address the Grimmauld Incident or whatever issues Hermione is convinced he has. He’s fine.

The conversation gradually shifts to safer topics: quidditch (the Canons are still ghastly), the ghoul in the attic that Ron is trying to teach wizarding chess (equally as ghastly), the new DADA professor. Ron looks increasingly annoyed as Hermione swoons over this mystery professor and his theories on the metaphysical effects of dementors on the soul.

“Dementors or not, I hope he can last more than a year, at least,” Ron says. “Be the first to manage it.”

“I’m sure he will.” Hermione blushes. “I mean—stability is more important than ever. I’m sure Professor McGonagall will prioritize it over everything else.”

“Not over quidditch, I hope. I don’t care what they have to change to let eighth years play, I’m playing. Right, Harry?”

“Right.” Harry wishes he cared more. Like he used to. Wishes he could borrow some of Ron’s endless enthusiasm.

As the train trundles onward, rain begins to spatter at the windows. The skies coalesce dark and angry as water gathers on the glass. It reminds Harry of the train ride his third year, of the dementors and Lupin and his mother’s screams. He wonders what he would feel like now if Dementors were to swoop in. If those same screams would return, or if, like his nightmares, new screams would join the rotation. He hopes he’ll never have to find out.

When they arrive, the skies have darkened completely with night, but the rain has slowed to just spitting. They wait until the last minute to exit the train car in the hopes that the crowd of eager students will have dissipated. It works, sort of, but the second they step off the train, the gaggles of students walking toward the carriages seem to automatically swivel toward them. Harry is unnerved by how in sync their turns are.

Hermione fights valiantly against the press of the crowd once again. If the way the first-year girls glare at her is anything to go on, she’s not gaining many fans by doing so. They’ve only just clambered into the carriage, Harry having wrestled his robes from the clutch of a particularly crazed second year, when the door suddenly swings open again.

Harry’s got his hand on his wand before he can register that it’s just Neville, looking muddy and a bit trampled. Ginny stands behind him, and even she looks a little worse for wear.

“Would you mind if we join? The crowd out there is a bit nuts,” he says, looking from Ron to Hermione to Harry. Harry tries to surreptitiously remove his hand from his wand.

“A bit?” Ron snorts.

“Of course you can,” Hermione adds, and Harry nods for good measure.

“Thanks.” Neville shoots Hermione a grateful look before plopping down next to Harry. Ginny carefully sits across from him. “Does anyone know who else has come back? Eighth years, I mean.”

“A good number of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Us, of course. Malfoy, Zabini, Goyle.” Hermione adds the final few names in a rush. If she was hoping Ron wouldn’t notice, it didn’t work.

“I still can’t believe they’re letting Death Eaters back into Hogwarts.” Ron’s brows crinkle in and his face begins to shift to an angry red. There’s a guardedness to his eyes that keeps Harry from disagreeing.

It doesn’t stop Hermione. “Malfoy was the only Death Eater, technically. And besides, Ron, we need to have some unity this year. Everything is so fragile. We can’t afford to hold mistakes against each other anymore.”

“Mistakes? They’ve made some bloody big mistakes, Hermione!” Ron’s fists clench at his sides. Harry wonders if he’s thinking about what those mistakes cost, or _who_ , rather: Fred and Dumbledore and Lupin and so many others, cold and unmoving, never coming back. Harry wonders if there’s anyone who isn’t thinking about it.

Hermione visibly struggles for words. “I’m not saying they haven’t,” she finally says. “But I’ve been—I’ve been thinking this summer. When…when I was in Australia. And we were all so _young_ , weren’t we? When everything happened.” She speaks in a rush again. “But we weren’t the only ones who were young—they were, too.”

“Well said, Hermione,” Neville interjects. “I know Luna would agree with you, if she were here.”

“How is Luna?” Harry latches hastily onto the change in subject matter. Truthfully, he knows how Luna is—she’s been owling him regularly from her travels through the wizarding region of Nepal. He’s not sure what prompted her to keep him in the loop about her searches for gravity-resistant tigers, but he’s quietly grateful for the kind, if batty, human contact she’s offered.

Neville and Ginny immediately pick up the new subject, which carries them all the way to the castle and abates some of the growing darkness in Ron’s eyes.

Harry is grateful for Neville’s and Ginny’s added presence; their larger group manages to push through the yelling crowd of students with marginally more ease. At least, Harry enters the castle without anyone catching hold of his robes again.

And the castle—the castle is almost exactly as he remembers it. The familiarity punches him in the gut, and for a moment, Harry feels like he’s walked into the past, straight into his first year.

Whoever had worked on the castle after the battle, after everyone had gone, must have worked non-stop. Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys had helped in the first week, of course, just doing grunt work, clearing rubble and the like. But whoever had come after had the real challenge—every stone is replaced, every portrait salvaged, every outward scar of dark magic erased. The Great Hall sparkles with the honeyed glow of thousands of candles and the night stars wink brilliantly from the ceiling. The four long house tables catch the light, glowing warm and welcoming.

Suddenly, Harry can’t remember why he had been apprehensive to return. Hogwarts, just as it had always been, is home.

They settle into Gryffindor table with Ron on Harry’s right and Neville on his left. Hermione sits on Ron’s other side and Ginny, again, keeps her distance from Harry.

Harry scans the head table as Ron complains about the delay in food (“We’ve seen six sortings already, do we really need to see another?”). Professor McGonagall—or Headmistress, rather—sits at the center of the table, her shrewd eyes watching the students file in. The rest of the faces are familiar: Slughorn, Trelawney, Flitwick, Merryweather, Hagrid. Hagrid is waving his huge palms animatedly as Flitwick attempts to keep his goblet out of range. Harry is filled with a sudden but staggering rush of warmth. Home. He’s _home_.

The feeling of stability is short-lived. A flash of white catches his eye; next to Hagrid sits a dark-skinned woman he’s never seen before. Her hair is nearly as pale as Malfoy’s, long silver braids catching the light from every candle and star. She wears deep blue robes that match the azure beads stranded throughout her braids. As Harry stares, she suddenly turns her polite attention from Hagrid’s story to meet Harry’s gaze head-on. He ducks his head away, embarrassed to be caught and more unnerved by her piercing gaze than he would like to admit.

“Who is that?” he interrupts

“What—”

Harry points Ron and Hermione’s attention to the head table. “That woman, next to Hagrid. Who is she?”

“Maybe they’ve hired two new professors,” Hermione says doubtfully, her eyes scanning the table. Her brow furrows. “But where’s—”

“Where’s your new boyfriend, Hermione? You know, the bloke who’s book you sleep with under your pillow?”

Hermione’s brown cheeks flood with blood. “I don’t _sleep with his book_ , Ronald. I simply admire his work. In a completely professional, appropriate manner.”

“Oh, really? You talk about him like he’s the second go-around of Gilderoy—”

“I do _not_ , Ronald, honestly. But I don’t see any new male professor here. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about the position. Oh, that would be just _terrible_. Because we’ll miss out on his expertise, of course. Not because—” Hermione cuts herself off.

“Who changed his mind about what position?” Ginny asks, tuning in.

“A.L. Rai. He was supposed to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.”

“A.L. Rai?” Neville questions. “A.L. Rai is right there.”

“Where?” Hermione whips her head back around to the head table as if she will catch him popping out from behind Hagrid’s back.

“Right there. Next to Hagrid, in the blue.”

“A.L. Rai is a _woman_?” Ron demands. “Well, that knocks out the bloody competition, doesn’t it, mate?” He thumps Harry on the back.

Hermione looks quietly horrified. “A _woman_ ,” she murmurs. “Of course! She always writes her books under just initials, but I—I can’t believe I didn’t realize—”

Ginny laughs. “Honestly, Hermione, I expected better from you.”

Hermione looks nauseous.

“It’s alright, Hermione,” Neville says softly. “No one really knew she’s a woman—until now, I guess. She’s an infamous recluse, she is, always tries to be anonymous and all that. I only know because my Gran has connections to her family in Sudan. She even babysat her once, when she was younger.”

“That’d make anyone a recluse,” Ron mutters.

“Well, it was still perfectly awful of me to assume,” Hermione insists weakly, but her face has mostly returned to its normal shade of brown. “I wonder why she’s chosen to take such a public position, now of all times.”

Harry thinks of how Professor Lai’s eyes had looked when they met his. So deep, so knowing. As if they had seen something in his eyes. Recognized something. Harry’s not sure he wants to know what it was.

“Job security,” Harry says. Ginny chokes on her goblet of pumpkin juice.

\-----

Harry has managed to avoid picking out Malfoy from the crowd so far. He knows Hermione is right; it’s time to leave that obsession behind. He may not like Malfoy—may never be able to tolerate his presence—but he couldn’t ruin all of the hard work Professor McGonagall had done to promote unity and tolerance by watching Malfoy’s every move. And hadn’t that been what they’d fought an entire war for? What his parents, godfather, mentor had died for—peace?

So he has to try. For them, he has to try.

It isn’t his fault that Malfoy makes it impossible.

McGonagall instructs all eighth years to remain at the front of the hall after the feast, and he, Ron, and Hermione have barely made it to the small circle of eighth years when Malfoy puts himself right into Harry’s line of sight. His thin frame, flanked by Blaise Zabini, steps in front of Harry, even as they face away from the trio.

“Lost, Malfoy?” Ron snaps.

When Malfoy turns around, Harry is struck at once by his eyes. The rest of him remains more or less unchanged since the end of the War—still impeccably dressed in tailored robes, hair still icy blond and carefully set. Everything elegant and precise and screaming of wealth. But his gray eyes have a weariness that Harry is not used to seeing, and dark bags stand stark beneath them. The only other thing about him to change is his height—he seems to have added an inch or so to his already tall frame, forcing Harry to look up at him.

The mean smirk on his face hasn’t changed a bit.

“Your parents may have neglected to teach you manners, Weasley, but surely you know you can simply walk around me,” he says smoothly.

Ron’s face turns a worrying shade of red. His hands twitch towards his wand. “Don’t you _dare_ say anything about my parents. Not when yours are a pair of murderers.”

Malfoy’s smug look turns icy and furious, and Harry steps forward before the exchange can devolve into genuine violence.

“Leave it, Ron,” Harry mutters, placing a hand on his shoulder. Ron steps back reluctantly but continues to glare.

“Ever the hero, aren’t we, Potter?” Malfoy’s expression has twisted into one of bitter disdain. “Pity the War’s over and there’s no one left to sacrifice yourself for.”

Harry feels the familiar spike of anger rise in him. After months of careful numbness, rage swims up to the surface. After everything the Light had done for Malfoy—pardoned him of his role in the War, rebuilt Hogwarts after _he_ had led to its downfall, spared his mother despite her role in the deaths of nearly everyone Harry held dear—after all of that, Malfoy was throwing it back in his face.

Before Harry could retort or drive a fist through Malfoy’s face (it was growing likelier by the moment), Professor McGonagall’s voice rings out.

“I presume you two are not having issues this early in the term, boys.” She looks down her nose severely at them.

“No, professor,” Malfoy answers smoothly. His eyes slide away from Harry. “We were merely catching up on our summer vacations.”

McGonagall purses her lips and gives them both one last reproving look. “Very well. If you have quite finished your conversation, I invite you all to listen. Given the number of you who have returned, we have decided that staying in your respective dormitories is out of the question. Instead, you shall all be paired up and placed in the spare rooms in the east wing of the sixth floor. You will be assigned your roommate, and there will be no exceptions. I expect each and every one of you to handle your assignments as the mature _adults_ that you are.”

She takes a moment to stare their upset titters into silence. Beside Harry, Ron has a look of impending doom on his face, and even Hermione pales. Harry feels strangely detached. His anger at Malfoy has already retreated from the surface, leaving only a peculiar layer of numbness. There goes his shot at a comfortable return to the plush couches of the Gryffindor common room and reassuring snores of Ron.

“Now, I will read the assignments one by one, and then you will be led to your new dormitories. Michael Corner and Neville Longbottom…”

It doesn’t take long to notice that each pairing originates from different houses. Any lingering hopes Harry clung to of being paired with Ron, or even Neville, disintegrate. Hermione seems to have noticed as well, dread growing on her expression with each passing second. Rather vindictively, Harry thinks, he wonders where all of her inter-house unity has gone now.

“Hermione Granger and Hannah Abbott,” McGonagall calls.

Hermione’s features ease with relief. Harry thinks of the word _mudblood_ carved into her arm and instantly feels guilty for his earlier thought; for her, the threat of sleeping beside a Slytherin carries a heavier weight.

“Harry Potter and Gregory Goyle.”

Ron winces beside Harry. “Tough one, mate.”

Harry can’t help but agree, although he’s thankful it isn’t Malfoy or Zabini. Goyle, while still massively unpleasant, doesn’t have the acerbic wit or pointed hostility of the rest of his house. Still, the relief doesn’t outweigh the disappointment of being separated from Ron, or the worry about what will happen if— _when_ —Harry wakes loudly from a nightmare. Even Goyle, thick as he is, will find something disparaging to say if he catches Harry in the throes of a nightmare. At the very least, he’ll tell Malfoy, who will very much have something to say—in fact, he’ll probably never shut up about it.

Harry tunes in just in time to catch the next pairing: “Draco Malfoy and Ronald Weasley.”

Ron sputters in stunned disbelief. “Did she just say I’m rooming with the _ferret_? Did I hear that right?”

“Er, looks like it,” Harry winces sympathetically. Even Hermione looks a bit sorry.

Across the circle of eighth years, Malfoy’s face betrays only a hint of disgust. Harry wonders if he’s masking the full force of his discontent for McGonagall’s sake—trying to cover up for his slip earlier, appear more trustworthy.

McGonagall finishes the list and begins to lead them toward the east wing of the sixth floor, cutting off Harry’s view of Malfoy’s face. He tries not to feel frustrated by this. Ron trails in stunned silence beside Harry and Hermione. The trio falls behind the rest of the group, separating easily in the others’ distraction.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Hermione says bracingly. She catches Ron’s look of disbelief. “I just mean…Malfoy has to live with you for the rest of the year. He knows he can’t afford any more disciplinary issues, not with his history. Maybe he’ll be more respectful now that you have to share a living space. If not for your sake, then for his own.”

“Malfoy? Being _respectful_? You can’t seriously believe that.”

Harry has to agree. He shrugs when Hermione shoots him a beseeching look. “Malfoy hasn’t changed, Hermione. We’ve barely been here two seconds and he’s already picked a fight.”

“What do you propose we do then? Ron has to find a way to live with him without doing anything stupid.”

“We could always set Fang on him,” Ron mutters.

“Not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Harry interjects. “Seriously, though, Malfoy’s a git. He and Goyle and the lot of them are always going to be pathetic gits. But they’ve lost the war. What are they going to do now other than be pathetic gits? We just have to ignore them best we can. Malfoy’s not worth any of our time.”

As Hermione, Ron, and Harry turn the corner, the east wing of the sixth floor reveals itself. Harry had never spent much time here; the long row of tall, dark doorways is unfamiliar, as it seems to be for the rest of the cohort. The eighth years slowly and dazedly join their partners in front of each respective door that McGonagall points to.

Malfoy is standing beside the door nearest the trio when they catch up; its mahogany frame shimmers with the carvings of minute owls, which fly and flit to and fro across the wood. Harry can tell at once that Malfoy has caught the end of their conversation. His eyes blaze with anger and something awful Harry can’t quite place; his jaw clenches, and he has drawn his shoulders up so high and tense that he looks like he would shatter on contact.

For a brief second, guilt flashes through Harry. Then he remembers Malfoy’s words at dinner— _no one left for you to sacrifice yourself for_ —and anger replaces it. What right does Malfoy have to be angry?

“What are you looking at, Malfoy?” Ron demands.

“If you had been listening, Weasley, you would know. You need to place your hand on the door beside mine, or else the wards won’t admit you. Do you truly need me to explain first-year knowledge of wards to you?”

Ron’s face, predictably, turns a steady shade of pink. “Shut it, Malfoy.” He turns to Hermione and Harry and sends them a wide-eyed, pathetic look. “Guess this is goodnight.”

“Goodnight—Hannah is waiting for me. _Don’t_ do anything stupid,” Hermione adds in a hissing whisper. She gives one last significant look to the both of them before leaving.

“Good luck with Goyle,” Ron mutters before Harry can escape the bored gaze of Malfoy. “Wake me up if you need back-up.”

They turn simultaneously to where Goyle stands three doors down. He looks around forlornly, lost without Malfoy to guide him, and then scrubs at a patch of sauce that has spilled down his front. His eyes flit up guiltily, trying to see if anyone has caught him.

“Thanks,” Harry says. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Harry leaves Ron to grapple with Malfoy and makes his way to Goyle. The east wing of the sixth floor is comprised of a long stretch of doorways, each engraved with a different creature. Harry’s and Goyle’s, upon closer inspection, is engraved with dozens of coiling and uncoiling snakes. He wonders if they would understand him if he spoke Parseltongue, and then is struck by the absurd hilarity of someone finding him alone in the hallway, speaking to his door. Maybe he really has gone round the bend.

“Gotta put our hands on the door,” Goyle says gruffly. He evidently has nothing more to add; he won’t even make eye contact. He and Harry place their hands on the door, and Harry feels the familiar tingle of a ward washing over them. Its magic chases a shiver down his spine, and he gets the unpleasant sensation of his magic mingling with Goyle’s. He’s not sure he wants his anything mingling with the broad Slytherin. The door opens with a click, and Goyle lumbers into the room with a grunt.

The room is carefully devoid of house colors, despite the Slytherin-esque snakes on the door. A stormy gray peaks out from behind dozens upon dozens of framed landscape images. Harry makes out a blue-toned painting of a coastal town and what looks like a black and white illustration of a lopsided mushroom. He doesn’t see any portraits, thankfully; at least the room can remain somewhat of a respite from watching eyes. Somehow, he doesn’t think Goyle will ask for an autograph any time soon. He’d probably rather snog the Giant Squid.

Two four-post beds lie on either side of the room, one to the left of a large, iron-framed widow and the other shrouded in shadows across from it. Goyle heads immediately toward the darker bed and begins digging through his trunk. Upon second glance, Harry notices his own trunk sitting beside the window bed.

Goyle begins to strip out of his robes, pulling them roughly over his head without warning. Spotting this, Harry hastily slips into the small bathroom at the back of the room. He’s witnessed enough emotionally scarring things for one lifetime.

A clawed bathtub with a dilapidated showerhead sits in one corner, overseen by a swooping painting of the Great Lake. Harry can make out the blue-green of the waves and one bruise-purple tentacle of the Giant Squid waving in the deeper waters. He turns and heads to where an ornate mirror hovers over a wide, ivory sink.

He pulls off his glasses and wipes a weary hand down his face. The brief comfort he had grasped during the Welcoming Feast is utterly gone. Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep or the lack of Ron waiting for him just outside the bathroom, but Harry suddenly feels lost. He can’t imagine the rest of the year playing out like this—coming back every day to Goyle, not Ron and Hermione, having to _sleep_ around him. Having to walk the castle each day and battle through crowds of admiring fans. It all seems so pointless, and that frustrates him—the war is over, and for the first time in his entire life, free of the tyranny of the Durselys and Voldemort, Harry can do whatever he pleases.

Except he can’t, can he? Not with everyone watching him all the time. Not with so many expectations pressing in on him from all angles. Expectations to become the next Head Auror, to help continue to hunt at-large Death Eaters, to continue to be the Savior (even though there’s _no one left to sacrifice himself for_ , as Malfoy said). And he definitely can’t do as he pleases when he has no clue what would please him.

For now, he decides with grim determination, a good night’s sleep, without waking up in a panic, will do.

He spells his teeth clean, realizing he left his toothbrush in his trunk outside. He’s always preferred the Muggle method, just like Hermione does—it feels cleaner, regardless of Ron’s insistence on the effectiveness of hygiene charms— but the feeling of lingering grime is worth avoiding any more nudity on Goyle’s part. 

He splashes his face with water from the tap, then looks at himself in the mirror, face dripping with the cold water. Hair jet black and unruly, face and body thinner somehow than at the beginning of the summer. He had assumed that not being on the run from a mass murderer would help him fill out his frame, but he remains as scrawny as ever. And his eyes—he is struck by how closely the look in his eyes resembles Malfoy’s earlier, when they had first seen each other again. The same bone-deep weariness in them both.

“You poor dear,” the mirror coos, making Harry jump. “You look positively dreadful.”

“Thanks,” he mutters. He leaves quickly, before the mirror can make any more comments. He knows, unfortunately, what he looks like.

Goyle has already snuffed out the lights when Harry returns, leaving the room pitched in just moonlight. His snores echo through the room; at least he snores like Ron. Harry stumbles through the darkness and into bed, cursing loudly when he stubs his toe on the end of the bed. Goyle shifts in his sleep, grunts, and then continues snoring.

Harry draws the curtains closed around him, blocking out the piercing moonlight. He squirms around uncomfortably in the gray sea of unfamiliar bedding for a long moment and then casts a quick _muffliato_. He just hopes it will be enough to keep his nightmares hidden.

\-----

The night is so dark, Harry can’t see the forest before him. He can only sense its writhing presence in the blackness. He walks forward slowly, as if pulled by some inextricable string, his bare feet scraping over grass and dead leaves. Trees, giant and looming, take shape around him as he enters the teethed mouth of the Forbidden Forest.

Ahead of him, moonlight pierces the trees and shines ghostly on a small clearing. A small figure stands in the center of it. It wears black robes too large for its frame, spilling off of its misshapen body and slithering sable on the forest floor.

Mechanically, drawn by some irresistible string in his navel, Harry enters the clearing. As if sensing his arrival, the figure turns.

“Harry Potter,” Voldemort hisses. He is the pathetic piece of his soul from the train station. Small and repulsive, sneering grin splitting open his face. His form begins to crawl impossibly toward Harry.

He draws closer and closer and Harry is repulsed, Harry wants to move, to run, but he can’t. He is frozen as Voldemort draws nearer and Harry doesn’t want it, doesn’t want to be touched, can’t stand to be touched, don’t touch, don’t touch, don’t touch—

Voldemort’s deformed hands, at once child and corpse-like, close around Harry’s throat like a vice.

“The great Harry Potter, all alone. Pathetic. What a pity, everyone who died for you—what a waste. And now there’s no one left, is there? _No one_.”

Voldemort’s breath smells of foul decay. His hands grow tighter and tighter around Harry’s throat, and Harry can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe—

He gasps awake, hands flying to his throat. His gasps rattle through the quiet of the dormitory and the feeling of breathlessness, of a heavy weight upon his chest, lingers. His heart races wildly in his chest.

He wrestles with the gray quilt of the bed, desperate to untangle himself. He wrenches the bed curtains open, stumbles from bed, and then freezes only several steps away as it all comes back to him—Hogwarts, the gray room, Goyle. He steadies himself on the bedside table and tries to quiet his ragged breaths. Goyle’s snores remain blessedly steady.

Eventually, Harry returns to his bed, but he still feels as though he is watching his own body shake from somewhere outside of himself. He draws the thick curtains around the bed once again, re-casting the _muffliatio_ , even as he knows it will not be enough to ward off dreams.

\-----

When Harry leaves the gray room the next morning, he’s not sure he’s slept at all. Any dip into sleep was brief and unsettled, and now, in the light of early morning, his entire body feels heavy with exhaustion. Even the mirror is worried at the sight of him.

“You didn’t sleep at all, did you?” It asks him as he brushes his teeth. “No one ever listens to little old me.”

“Sorry,” he says. It tuts at him disapprovingly.

When he leaves, Goyle is just rolling out of bed. He doesn’t seem the sharpest in the morning, although that isn’t saying much—he merely grunts when he sees Harry, and Harry isn’t sure he’s truly absorbed who he’s grunting at.

He slips the messaging coin from his pocket and sends a quick message to Ron and Hermione: _in the hall, ready for breakfast._ Hermione never lets them go anywhere without the charmed coins, reminiscent of the DA’s messaging system. Harry would call her paranoid, but he also feels better when he can contact either one of them in seconds, regardless of where they are.

Minutes later, Ron and Hermione emerge. Ron yawns and frowns.

“Couldn’t at least let us sleep 'til the sun was up, Harry?”

“The sun is up,” Harry says stupidly. He can’t be arsed to conjure a better reply.

Of the three of them, Hermione seems the most well-rested, though of course she almost always looks like that. Her unending energy is a marvel, really, as much as it can be irritating.

At breakfast, he tries desperately not to fall asleep into his eggs and toast. He tries to remember to eat them, too, so Hermione won’t shoot him that fretful, knowing look in her dark brown eyes. Next to him, Ron tries to rant about Draco through mouthfuls of hash browns.

“How’d you sleep?” Hermione asks anyway, far too perceptive.

“Fine,” Harry lies.

“Slept better than me, then,” Ron says obliviously, even as Hermione shoots him a pointed look. “Couldn’t sleep with that ferret in the same room as me. He’s up to something, I can feel it. I mean, I don’t think he went to bed at all last night.”

“What do you mean?” Hermione looks interested despite herself.

“I mean he wasn’t there when I got out of the bathroom and went to bed, and I kept waking up in the middle of the night, you know, in case he was out to kill me. Kept expecting his wand at my throat, the slimy bastard. But he was never there; his bed was empty every time. And when I woke up this morning, it was still empty. Perfectly made and everything. I reckon he was wandering the castle, trying to break into Harry’s room and finish him off.”

“Honestly, Ron, you have to stop accusing Draco of being up to something. You heard Professor McGonagall, and she’s right—we need to be united this year. No more house rivalry. No more stalking Malfoy.”

Harry keeps his eyes trained on the eggs, grown rubbery and cold in his neglect, so he can pretend she didn’t direct that last part toward him. “Besides, it was dark—maybe he was in his bed the whole time and you didn’t see. Maybe you dreamt the whole thing. And honestly, Ron, just because _you_ don’t make your bed—”

“Hey! I make my bed! Sometimes—”

“You’re deliberating missing my point—”

“I’m not missing—what do you—Harry agrees with me! He said so last night! Come on, Hermione, he’s a _Death Eater_. How could he not be up to something? They shouldn’t have even let him back into Hogwarts, if you ask me. He should be rotting with his father in Azkaban—right, Harry?”

“Right,” Harry mutters. He can’t find it in himself to argue, no matter Hermione’s reproving expression, when he’s not sure he that he does disagree. Yes, Malfoy was young when he had made his mistakes, as Hermione said, but wasn’t Harry young then, too? And he had never become a Death Eater. Never caused so much pain and suffering and death. Never got to be so selfish.

“Regardless of shoulds and should nots, Ronald, he’s _here_. And he’s your roommate—you’re going to have to learn to let some things go if you’re going to be around him so often,” Hermione persists.

“That’s the thing, though, isn’t it?” Ron says triumphantly. “ _Is_ he here? Where is he going on the first night of term if he isn’t in bed? Worth investigating, if you ask me.”

If you ask Harry, too. He knows he’s supposed to be trying for peace, for Dumbledore and McGonagall’s and his parents' sake, supposed to be putting the past aside and not obsessing over Malfoy again. But he was never obsessed over _Malfoy_ , he reasons, just what Malfoy was doing—and he had good reason to be. He was right in sixth year. That time, Malfoy was a Death Eater who caused the death of Dumbledore and let a steady stream of other Death Eaters into the castle. Maybe Ron is right this year.

As if drawn by the magnetism of this last thought, Harry’s eyes travel across the Great Hall and catch on Malfoy’s shocking blond hair. The white strands dimple in the sunlight, and in the depths of his numb exhaustion, Harry feels something spark to life


End file.
